An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Saturday, June 23, 2012

It Didn’t Turn Out Well for Henry Hudson, If You Get My Drift

A fanciful depiction of the fate of Henry Hudson.

Being an explorer in the age of sail could be a risky business. Christopher
Columbus nearly killed himself and did loose most of his crew on his
desperate last voyage to find gold and prove that he had really found the Orient.
He survived, but the Admiral
of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy in
the New World soon found himself
hauled back to Spain in chains.

But he was lucky. Famed Portuguese
navigator Ferdinand Magellan never completed his circumnavigation of the globe, but was hacked to death in the surf
by Philippine natives. More than two centuries later British Captain James Cook suffered a
similar fate at the hands of pissed off Hawaiians. Others perished in storms at sea or succumbed
to illness.

But Henry Hudson suffered the coldest fate
of all. On June 23, 1611 most of his
crew mutinied in the large bay which would be named for him. They cast their captain, his teenage son and
seven others—loyal crew members and
men to sick to work—adrift in a boat then sailed away. Hudson was never seen again and his exact
fate has become one of the mysteries of exploration.

There is no doubt that
Hudson was a master mariner. He had
proved that on earlier voyages. But
remarkably little is known personally about him.

His birth somewhere in England, likely in a seaport town, has
been put as early as 1655 to as late at 1670 with most historians splitting the
difference and guessing sometime in the 1660s.
He likely did not come from a propertied family or his birth would have
been registered. Some think that he may
have been an illegitimate son of a successful man who may have helped him in
his career.

More likely he signed
on board as ship as a cabin boy at about the age of 10 and by dint of hard work
and aptitude worked his way up to ship’s
master.

At any rate by 1607 he
had a good enough reputation to be hired by the Muscovy Company, a stock
company which had monopoly on trade with Russia. They were seeking a new, open water route
north across the Poll to “China, Japan and the Spice Islands.” The theory was
that long summer daylight in the far north would melt the sea ice and open a
passage. That they hired Hudson and his
small ship the 80-ton Hopewell
is an indication that he was probably already known for sailing northerly
waters.

Hudson set sail on May
1, 1607 from London on what would
become known as his first voyage. He
drove pretty north, veering north west after clearing the Shetland Islands reaching the coast of Greenland on June 13. He
explored northward along the uncharted coast—although Greenland was known and
settled by the Vikings, their settlements were far to the south of Hudson’s
landfall. The weather was harsh with
snow and ice and the sea treacherous.
None the less he pushed north along the coast for several days before
turning north east. He spied Spitsbergen, recently discovered by the
Dutch.
Pushing along the north shore of the island, un-charted by the
Dutch, he found the shore teaming with seal
and Walrus whose fur and ivory
would become a sought after trading commodity.
He also found seas teaming with whales
and some historians credit his log entries with helping to launch the British
whaling industry.

After reaching nearly
80º north, further than any other recorded European, Hudson had to turn back on
account of packed sea ice and bad weather on July 31. He arrived back in London on September
15.

Although his voyage had
not succeeded, Hudson still believed a northern passage might yet be
discovered. As accounts of his voyage
set off a scramble by others to the north to hunt seals and whales, Hudson
planned yet another voyage.

In 1608 the Muscovy
Company dispatched him on a second voyage, this time directing him to sail
northeast and attempt to reach the orient across the northern shores of
Russia. This time he managed to get away
earlier, in April. He sailed along the
western and northern shores of Norway then hit open water. But north of the Russian island of Novaya
Zemlya he encountered impenetrable pack ice. He attempt to turn west and try in the
opposite direction, but was forced to return to England after a near mutiny by
his half-frozen crew.

After two unsuccessful voyages
the Muscovy Company lost interest in further exploration. Finding a northern
passage to the east was becoming an obsession but Hudson was unable to find any
other backers in England.

Stymied in his
homeland, Hudson turned to England’s greatest commercial rival for
support. The fabulously wealthy Dutch East India Company had enough
cash to bankroll another voyage. They commissioned
him to try again to find a northeast passage.
Hudson had serious doubts that such a voyage was possible, but was more than
willing to take the company’s money and the new vlieboot (flyboat), a light three masted ship that could be
fit out as a merchantman or an armed
naval vessel.

Hudson set sail on April 1 or 6 1609—accounts differ—from Amsterdam on the Halve
Maen (Half Moon). A second ship, likely the Good Hope sailed with him but
turned back after Hudson abandoned his order and turned his ship west instead
of east. He wanted to explore the
possibility of a passage through North
America hinted at in published accounts of John Smith’s Virginia explorations and settlement and French accounts of Samuel
de Champlain.

He encountered pack ice
even further south than the year before, but may have always intended to head
west. Once again, Hudson was faced with
a near mutiny and acrimony between English and Dutch crewmen. But he convinced them to continue, altering
his course slightly to the west south west which brought his ship into more hospitable
waters.

After stopping in the Faeroe Islands to take on water and trade for food, he
pressed westward and was soon bucking what Benjamin
Franklin would discover and describe a century and a half later—the Gulf Stream. Despite hard sailing, including a storm
that took down one mast, Hudson entered the Grand Banks off of Newfoundland
where they encounter a small fleet of French
fishermen. Taking a hint, the crew
replenished their food supplies by landing a couple of hundred Cod before
sailing on the coast.

They spot the mainland
in what is today Nova Scotia and the
damaged ship limped south by southwest making first landfall around Penobscot Bay. They spend several days in the area
trading with the friendly natives, fishing and lobstering, laying in spare
masts from the bountiful timber, and repairing the ship. Despite good relations with the natives some
members of the crew are convinced they are treacherous and “would do us harm if
they could.” On July 25 a party of men,
possibly against Hudson’s wishes, went ashore and raided the village, killing
some men and driving the rest away. They
stole everything they could lay their hands on then burned the dwellings. Hudson, fearing reprisals, sails south along
the coast the next day.

After passing Cape Cod the ship continued south
hugging the shore. Hudson discovered
Delaware Bay and traded more with the natives.
Pushing south he came near Jamestown,
but refrained from putting in despite his personal friendship with John
Smith for fear the English would attack him as a “poacher.” By mid August the weather was becoming hot
and the suspicious crew kept finding omens of doom and clamored to return. Hudson turned back north, attempted unsuccessfully
to sail up shallow Delaware Bay, then resumed his northward tack.

Early in August Hudson
rounded Sandy Hook and found the bay
with the outlet of a great river—the one soon to be named for him. It was not the first discovery. Giovanni
da Verranzano had found it in 1524 and a Portuguese navigator arrived a few months later. Neither, however, ventured up the river. Hudson officially lay claim to the bay for
the Dutch and spent some days successfully trading. A small party under the leadership of Hudson
closest associate, John Coleman was
sent to explore in a small boat and was attacked by two large war canoes and
Coleman was killed. These warriors were
likely not related to those peacefully trading with Hudson.

But Hudson’s crew took
some of the peaceful natives captive as security.

Hudson and his crew
entered the river itself and started sailing up. This looked to him like the “river highway”
which would connect to a northwest passage that had been reported by Smith and
the French. The ship continued north for
10 days reaching what is now Albany where the river became unavailable. After sending small boats further in hope of
finding open water, Hudson realized there was no outlet. But once again he traded with the natives and
found an abundance of furs of every sort available. On August 23 the turned to sail back down the
river and from there on to Europe.

On November 7, Hudson
put in at Dartmouth, England and was
detained by authorities who demanded his logs and the valuable intelligence and
navigation charts they contained. Hudson
managed to smuggle them to the Dutch Ambassador. Hudson was held a virtual prisoner for months
and forbidden to return to Holland or even communicate with his employers. Eventually the ship and its Dutch crewmen were
released and allowed to return with Hudson chests containing his charts and
notes.

The Dutch sent
follow-up expeditions and established a lucrative fur trading post near Albany in
1615 and a sea port capital for a colony of New Netherlands on Manhattan,
New Amsterdam, on the strength of
Hudson’s claims and discoveries.

Word of the voyage, however, was enough to interest English investors—the
Virginia Company and British East India Company—in a fourth
voyage. He also had the influential
patronage of Henry, Prince of Wales. A new ship, Discovery was outfitted for Hudson and several members of
his earlier crews, including some known trouble makers, were signed on. This time, Hudson’s instructions were to find
the Northwest Passage to the orient.

Hudson set sail north in the spring of 1610 reach Iceland in Maythen
heading west south west to Greenland, well south of his first voyage. In fact he rounded the southern end of the
giant island and broke into the open water.
Reaching the northern shore of Labrador, Hudson hugged the shore until
he found what is now the Hudson Straight
between the continent and Baffin Island.

The narrow passage was open, but treacherous with floating ice and
strong currents in opposite directions—running east along the north shore and
west along the south of Baffin. To Hudson’s
eyes, however, it looked like the elusive passage.

On August 7, Hudson entered the Bay, which looked to him at first like
open ocean. He began to explore south
along the shore but was nearly icebound once and facing an increasingly restive
and fearful crew.

When they found James Bay, at
the southern tip of Hudson’s Bay, the captain realized he was in a deep bay and
not in open ocean. This was in November,
however, the ice trapped the ship.
Hudson and his men built a camp on the shore to ride out the winter.

When the ice broke the next spring, Hudson wanted to continue and
follow the shore on the western side of the bay to the north still in hopes of
finding an outlet. After days of
tension, open mutiny finally broke out.

That’s when Henry, his son and their companions were set adrift. The small boat was well provisioned and the
Captain and his men were left tools, fishing gear, and weapons for self-defense
and hunting. The mutineers may have
convinced themselves that Hudson could establish a shore camp and survive until
some future expedition could find them.

Hudson probably realized that this was a forlorn hope, which is why he
tried to pursue the Discovery in hopes that the mutineer would change
their minds and take him aboard. Instead
the mutineers piled on more sail and pulled away.

No trace of Hudson and his small party has ever been found. He may indeed have tried to establish a camp
and succumbed in the next winter or at the hands of the natives. Or they may have tried to sail back through
the treacherous strait. Certainly other
captains set adrift by mutineers made epic journeys in small boats, most
famously William Bligh of HMS Bounty. But that was in the South Pacific, not the frigid north.

Several of the mutineers died on the return to England. The survivors were clapped in irons upon arrival
in England in September 1611. Mutiny, after all was a serious business and
usually ended at the end of a noose for the rebels. The only account of the mutiny and return
voyage came from a journal by the ship’s navigator, Abacuk
Pricket who identified first mate Robert Juet, who had been behind near mutinies on earlier voyages,
and Robert Greene, a mysterious
personage listed as a “passenger” and who was picked up after the Discovery set
sail from England and after a representative of the investors was unceremoniously
put off of the ship as the leaders. However both Juet and Greene died on the way
home and Picket could have been covering for his own role or the parts of
others.

Despite a recommendation
that the survivors be tried as mutineers in Admiralty Court, no trial was held until 1618, by which time some the
eight survivors of the voyage had died. The
rest were charged with murder, however, not mutiny, and the charges could not
be proved because it was unknown whether Hudson and his party had indeed died.

The suspicion has been
that the investors wanted the knowledge and expertise of the survivors to make further
exploration. That view seems borne out by the fact that Pricket and lead seaman
Robert Bylot returned to the north aboard Discovery on later voyages.

Washington Irving put the ghost of Henry Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon haunting the river valley he explored and playing loud
games of nine pin. But if there is a ghost, he surly haunts the ice far, far to the north.